Amphian and Aedesius

The brothers came of a wealthy pagan house of Pagae (Patara) in Lycia, and were sent, as young men of their rank were, to study rhetoric and law at Berytus. There, or soon after, they came to the knowledge of Christ, and, forsaking the ambitions their birth had marked out for them, gave themselves wholly to the faith. Amphian went to Caesarea in Palestine, where he attached himself to the household and school of the priest Pamphilus (the friend of Eusebius).

When the persecution of Maximinus commanded universal sacrifice, and the governor Urbanus of Palestine was himself about to offer at the altar, the young Amphian, not yet twenty, boldly stepped forward, seized the governor's hand and rebuked him, forbidding him to sacrifice to idols in place of the true God. For this he was seized and subjected to fearful tortures — his sides torn, his feet wrapped in oil-soaked cloths and set on fire — which he bore without yielding, and at last he was drowned in the sea. His brother Aedesius, after enduring imprisonment and the mines, came to Alexandria, where, seeing a judge cruelly abusing consecrated virgins and pious women, he in turn confronted and struck him for his impiety; and he too was tortured and cast into the sea, following his brother in martyrdom. Eusebius, who set down their story in his Martyrs of Palestine, honours their youth and their fearless love of God.